The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-04-14
BEECHER'S ORATORY.
A LITTLE DRAMA WITH ITS siTUA-
TloNs AND DENOUEMENT.


A LITTLE DRAMA WITH ITS SITUA-
TloNs AND DENoUEMENT.
sccno at Mass Meeting In Tripler Hall.
A Trick In 0ratory-Tho Inspiration Of
tho Moments-Anti-slavers spesrft
Years ago, when 1 was quite boy,
there was q great disturbance in this city
over the Five Points, which Mt that time
was the most disgraceful cesspool of in
iquity on the face Of the earth. The au-
thorities either would not or could not do
anything for it's regeneration. Under the
lash of public agitation the women Of
Ncv York came together and organized
what was called the Ladies' Home Mis-
sionary society, and called o series of mass
meetings in Tripler hall, an enormous
building on Broadway that had been
erected in anticipation of the ar
rival of Jenny Lind. These mass meet
ings were unique. I think they took
place on Saturday nights. Never before
had so many "big guns" been brought to-
gether on the platform rs the ladies
gathered for these meetings. Half hour
addresses were made by all the most
eloquent orators of the American pulpit,
irrespective of denomination, and the great
hall was regularly packed to the doorways.
On one occasion I remember Cheever
Cuyler, the lanented DR.. Foster, of the
Methodist church, and q score of others,
including Henry Ward Beechcr, were
announced. And the Hutchinson family
and the Alleghanians were to sing. The
speakers were all on their mettle, for they
were pitted against each other in q good
cause. My recollection is that DR.. Foster
tainted from excessive emotion, after one
of the most startling appeals ever heard.
AN IMAGINARY DIALOGUE
Somewhere in the course of the evening
Henry Ward Beecher was introduced. He
was then in the full flower of enthusiasm
and far more clerical in cut than when in
his maturity. Instead of taking the center
of the platform, as all the preceding
speakers had done, he walked to the ex-
trelne end and began IN imaginary dia-
logue in which q politician took part. He
asked him NIL kinds of questions rs to the
proper way to regcnerate the Five Points
and got all kinds of absurd and evasive
replies. When he had exhausted the ig-
norance and Indifference of this function
airy he walked to the other end of the
platform, and, with both hands extended
and body bent over, as if looking into
hole, he said: "We lay you down there for
so much!'
Then back across the width of the plat
form to begin another conversation with
physician. The whole character of the
dialogue changed instantly. The new
man spoke in new vein. He had gases
and therapeutics at his finger ends. He
would rcgenerate the Five Points with q
six foot sewer and chloride Of lime. He
was visionary, technical and wholly mad
equate, and he was carried over and
placed in the same hole "for so much"
Then the same process was gone
through with an editor and philosopher
and IN engineer, and by this time the
vast assemblage was worked up to o
pitch of intense expectation and suspense.
The one dominant interrogative emo
ton was-"Who will do this thing2''
A TRICK OF 0RAToRY.
Never have forgotten the effect pro-
duced when the speaker took the middle
VI tue oIttRo 1o4 AAo PStoAeseion CIV oeAo'
s'Now we'll take down the Christian
women of New York;
And they seemed to US to sweep down
like Valkyrie with flaming swords.
Boy as was knew, as soon as l got
away from the magnetic influence Of the
speaker, that this was trick Of oratory
in which the method of the playwright
had been employed. We had been listen
ing to little DRAMA with its well defined
dramatis persona, its situations, its five
acts, with curtain, and it's final denoue-
ment.
Years afterward, standing there on his
lawn under one of the trees he had him
self planted, trying to recall in the ruddy,
white haired man at my side the eager,
impassioned, somewhat gaunt and ire
sistibly earnest speaker who had made
such an impression on my young mind, I
reminded him Of the scene in Tripler hall
and asked him if he had planned that
effect beforehand or left it to the sugges-
ton of the moment.
His recollection was that 1t had oc-
Cured to him just before lie appeared on
the platform. He assured me that all his
best results in oratory were due to the in
spiration of the moment.
And then he told me how on one occa-
sion he was making an anti slavery speech
at the old Broadway Tabernacle and there
had been left there by Arthur Tappan or
somebody else chain that had been worn
in the south by o slave. In my closing
appeal, said Mr.. Beecher, saw the chain
for the first time, and going over Ipicked
it up and throwing it down trampled upon
it as finished The effect was electrical,
but it was unprecedented -Nym Crinkle
in New York World.